This year, for the first time, we have produced for our mill-spun range, a marled yarn – with one strand Hebridean, the black contrasting sharply with the strands of Cheviot – inspired by seeing the two breeds gathered together into one fank.

We found this nest of Redstarts wedged between the stiff vertical leaves at the middle of a New Zealand Flax plant, at about half height. The nest is woven with the dead flax leaves that litter the ground below and between adjacent plants.

There are no honey bees in Uist, so pollination is by other flying insects, often just flies. Bumble bees too : they nest – and hibernate – in the gaps of the high stone walls of our garden, which is a very short journey to work for them, pollinating our apple trees and soft fruit bushes

There’s a side to my personality – the engineer! – that continually strives to find patterns, build structures, impose order. Thank heavens, then, there’s another side of me – one that prefers to let go, to open wide the thought and let in the serendipitous, the many wonders that fall into our laps without us having to do a thing, and might never even have imagined existed or were possible.